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Proximity Device- External Reader from BuyNFCTags

Question

I bought an external reader from BuyNFCTags that is a usb based NFC reader/writer. It is detected by Windows 8 as ACR122U PICI interface. Although the GoToTags windows NFC app running on my windows 8 pc can detect , read and write tags with the reader,
the Proximity Metro Sample does not.

Is the proximity sample looking for the specific hardware thats on the Samsung Build tablets? If so, is there a way to make it recognize other readers.

Just a point - Windows 8 effortlessly detected and installed the required drivers for the usb reader so IMHO ,i think this is a restriction in the Proximity Sample.

Hello devs! The ACS readers currently only support the PC/SC stack, so they wont be able to work on Win8 as a proximity device. Even with Win7 we can only use PC/SC; the ACS drivers do not expose the underlying NFC operations on the chip. This isn't an
issue for apps like the
GOTOTAGS Windows NFC App, but it is for other uses. The app works on Win8 as it still supports PC/SC. So for the time being you are out of luck. However we work very closely with ACS. We will bring this up with them in our next meeting. We need this anyways
so that we can port our Windows app to Win8 using proximity. Hope this helps!

-CT

Craig Tadlock, CEO - GOTOTAGS and BUYNFCTAGS

<shamelessplug>

Here is a link where you get the app and a sample of NFC tags for developers.

If they don't have drivers for Windows Developer Preview, you can download Windows 7 drivers and install in compatibility mode.

For the driver/drivers you downloaded use the compatibility troubleshooter to install them to see if that resolves the problem.
You can do this by:·Enter the Start screen
·Move your mouse to the bottom left of the screen to expand the Charms section·Select
Search·Type
Compatibility·Click
Settings in the right column ·Click
Run programs made for previous versions of Windows·Then follow the prompts and direct the troubleshooter to the installer for your computer's driver.

I downloaded and installed the driver from the ACH website (as they are the manufacturer). There was no installer package so did not have to run it in compatibility mode. I updated the driver and confirmed that Device Manager shows the correct version
of the driver.

However the ProximityDevice.GetDefault() method still returns a null. My thoughts are, if the GoToTags app can find and read and write tags using the device, the driver must be successfully installed for it to work.

Thanks. I also have posted another thread about the messageType that you have to use to read the messages. I am storing plain text on the NFC tag. What is the messageType to pass to SubscribeForMessage method? The plain text is a simple GUID or a xml doc.
I just need to read it as a string and use it appropriately.

Hello devs! The ACS readers currently only support the PC/SC stack, so they wont be able to work on Win8 as a proximity device. Even with Win7 we can only use PC/SC; the ACS drivers do not expose the underlying NFC operations on the chip. This isn't an
issue for apps like the
GOTOTAGS Windows NFC App, but it is for other uses. The app works on Win8 as it still supports PC/SC. So for the time being you are out of luck. However we work very closely with ACS. We will bring this up with them in our next meeting. We need this anyways
so that we can port our Windows app to Win8 using proximity. Hope this helps!

-CT

Craig Tadlock, CEO - GOTOTAGS and BUYNFCTAGS

<shamelessplug>

Here is a link where you get the app and a sample of NFC tags for developers.

I dont not know of any public NFC readers that have Win8 drivers. Although I haven't done an exhaustive search. Im still waiting to hear back from one company and have a meeting schedule with another. We do not write reader drivers, they
all come from the reader manufacturers. We write the NFC/NDEF stack on top of those drivers. Our app support a wide range of readers and tags; each with it's own features and bugs. Here's a link to what we currently support..